After over three decades in practice and partnership at Teplitsky, Colson, LLP, Darlene Madott has recently embraced change and transitioned her practice from downtown litigator to peacemaker in Toronto’s west end, on the Bloor subway line. It has been a process of transformation in the making for over a decade.

"It takes courage to make change. Fear of change is not an option. I have never known a single client to regret the choice to leave a loveless or abusive marriage. On the other side of fear lays freedom. I am there to help provide support, understanding and knowledge with the journey. I come equipped with an enlarged toolkit."

She now offers family mediation services, alternate dispute resolution services, counsel work, and armchair advice to the self-represented, in addition to her regular family law practice.

She successfully completed The Osgoode Certificate in Elder Law, and Elder Mediation Training Program, Marathon Mediation, and Certificate in Family Law Arbitration, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, Ontario.

After her call to the Ontario Bar in 1985, Darlene Madott began her career as a litigator, and participated in precedent-setting cases, which included:

A Trinidad husband obtains a stay of Ontario proceedings based on Trinidad being the more substantial jurisdiction (Nicholas);

A woman obtains the right to sue grandparents for support, based on a contractual concept of the family (Cheng);

An international child abduction case raises constitutional and conflict-of-laws issues where immigration legislation conflicts with the Children’s Law Reform Act and the return of abducted children to the home jurisdiction (Maharaj);

A mobility case, where an access father successfully resists the move of his children with their mother to North Bay, (Tumino);

In an Application for variation of child support and financial disclosure, where the parties had a separation agreement that provided for non-variable child support, special expenses, and waiver of future financial disclosure, the father was ordered to provide financial disclosure as mandated by the Child Support Guidelines and the information was ordered sealed for 12 months. (Quinn v. Keiper).

However, as Darlene Madott developed in the practice of family law, she became increasingly disenchanted with litigation as a way to resolve most matrimonial disputes, sensitized to the lasting impacts of the way people end their relationships:

"What separating couples normally want is a resolution that is fair, respectable and sustainable. Matrimonial clients do not want to be legal precedents. They want life after loss, and in a very deep sense, want their families to survive."

A published writer, as well as a barrister, Madott’s clients receive the benefit of her written advocacy. Returning to the root of the word “advocate,” Madott derives meaning and satisfaction in her work from the concept of "giving voice" to those who cannot tell their own stories. She brings a uniquely creative and caring approach to the practice of family law.